I got to know ChrisMicro in 2012 during a New Year's Eve soldering event at the KulturGüter-Schuppen (CulturalGoods-Shed), an art space run by Jördis Drawe and Uwe Schüler in Dusslingen, Germany. At a workshop with students 2017 again at the KulturGüter-Schuppen, Chris helped us a lot writing code for Klopfer, a motordriven percussion tool designed by Uwe Schüler.

​Unfortunately, I did not make it to New Year's Eve Soldering this year, where Chris, Uwe and Ralf Schreiber (sound artist, inventor of sound tools and a long time electronic bird sound designer) revived an old project by ChrisMicro: A bird sings driven by a little motor. In the end, they called it Motörbörd. Since that session Chris, Uwe and Ralph are still working on the circuit to have different versions at the start.

Q:
​Chris, when did you start with electronics and programming?Chris:
Since the age of 12, I have been dealing with electronics because I got a electronics kit from my grandfather. At age 15, I developed my first computer with a Z80 microprocessor. That was even harder than today because you had to copy documents in journals and libraries and there was also no affordable development tool for me as a teenager. Computer technology, in particular, had developed more and more the ability to eat my attention and time.

Q:
When and how did you start with MotörBörd?Chris:
Around 2007 I was contacted by the SGMK (Swiss Society for Mechatronics and Art - The SGMK projects have an affinity for sound and music), because at the time I was busy with small, mobile craft robots and I was supposed to hold a workshop. At the SGMK Homemade Week was Ralf Schreiber, who gave a solar bird workshop. The components of the analog circuits had been relatively expensive, so I wanted to use a microcontroller. What then succeeded after some optimizations to the clock frequency and at the end also the power consumption.

Digital Motorbird 2011

Q:
How did the first solar birds work?Chris:
The solar birds have the property that they begin with their beeping in the sunshine and they can not be influenced by humans. Originally I had tried to equip the solar birds with environmental sensors to influence their "singing", so that the sound sequences are more diverse. But over time it seemed better to make a directly influenced sound generator out of it. With the experience of building the solar birds and the desire for a battery-free, durable device, I came up with the idea to produce electricity with a generator, which then drives the mirocontroller.

Q:
When did the solar bird become a motor?Chris:
Originally, I had the first Motorbird built around 2011. It consists of a Faulhaber motor for relatively high voltages (I think so around 24V) without cogging torque, an Attiny13 microcontroller with connected piezo as sound generator. The power supply is made via a diode for reverse polarity protection and a capacitor as energy storage. For a Motorbird to work well, the engine must have certain characteristics. It should be designed for higher voltages, because it can then deliver sufficient voltage for the circuit even at low speeds in generator mode, because the axis is indeed turned by hand. It is also very good if the engine has no cogging torque, because it makes it easier and more pleasant to turn.

Motörbörd 2019: Hand drawn schematics by ChrisMicro

Q:
But now, around New Year's Eve you restarted the Motorbird project and it became MotörBörd.Chris:
Since I was on New Year's Eve at KulturGüter-Schuppen this year Uwe found some promising engines, I started to pick up the idea again. I had almost forgotten the idea, but everyone was enthusiastic about the generator-powered sound production and Ralf Schreiber came up with the idea to call the whole "Motorbird". Now we (me, Ralph and Uwe) decided to call it "Motörbörd". The name reminds me of the image of a slightly subversive bird with a penchant for heavy metal, a mix of Motörhead and Road Runner.

Wolfgang Dorninger

Soldering is the new hometaping​I live and work in Linz, Austria as musician, producer and sound artist. I compose music for movies, theater and create sound installations to make a living. Sound is the main focus of my artistic work, as musician (The Smiling Buddhas, Wipeout, Dorninger, ...), label-owner (base), sound artist or lecturer at the Art University of Linz. In the 80s and 90s I ran the cassette label DIE IND.

My sound works oscillates between musique concrète and digital sound-production in a range spanning sound installations, multi-media performances, music for theater and techno

​The Electronic Cottage website is primarily an online magazine for the publication of lengthy and in-depth articles, essays, and interviews.For those of you who use Facebook I have created an Electronic Cottage Group, which is a casual social gathering place of the EC Community, where EC people can meet, share artwork and news of current projects and releases.The website and this EC Facebook Group are two separate but connected entities of the greater EC Community.